Cultural life and historical sources of the Khiva Khanate

The Khiva khans aimed to restore Khwarazm’s former greatness and, though their economic means were limited, spent heavily on building cities, canals and a library. In literature Shermuhammad (Munis Khorezmi) and his nephew Muhammad Riza (Agahi) stand out: Munis compiled a divan in 1804, wrote the “Oshiqlar do‘sti” divan of over 20,000 lines and a poetic manual for teaching literacy, while Agahi (born 1809) was a poet, historian and translator who rendered works of Sa’di, Jami and Nizami into Uzbek. In historical writing Abulghazi Bahadur Khan wrote the “Shajara-i Turk” in Uzbek; Munis began the “Firdavs ul-iqbal” and Agahi continued it, and Agahi also wrote “Riyaz ud-davla”, “Zubdat ut-tavarikh” and “Jami ul-voqeati sultani”, carrying Khwarazm’s history up to his own time. Khiva was a centre of calligraphy and book art; making one book involved the scribe-calligrapher, gilder, heading-writer, miniature painter and binder together. Education had two stages: according to the textbook the 19th century had about 1,500 primary schools and 103 madrasas, 22 of them in Khiva; costs were met by waqf income.